


Out of Context

by doctor__idiot



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Bottom Dean, Case Fic, First Time, M/M, Memory Loss, Top Sam, Topping from the Bottom, Valentine's Day, a little crack-ish maybe, it's disgusting, major fluff, seriously
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-19
Updated: 2017-02-19
Packaged: 2018-09-25 15:53:22
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,174
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9827390
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/doctor__idiot/pseuds/doctor__idiot
Summary: When Sam and Dean keep waking up naked, all over each other, and without recollection of the previous night, the first thing Sam does is dig into the lore to find out what's going on. Dean is more concerned with the question why he always seems to be the one who bottoms.





	

**Author's Note:**

> This got way out of hand. I had every intention to write a short and sweet Valentine's Day fic and here I am, almost a week late, with this monster. Beware: I am not very good at case fic and I made most of it up on the fly.
> 
> Disclaimer: Nothing's mine. Unbeta'd.
> 
> For [Mybaderbrainday](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Mybaderbrainday/pseuds/Mybaderbrainday).

Waking up naked and with a total blank from the night before isn’t a first for Dean. That’s why he doesn’t worry too much about it, just shuffles back under the covers to block out the morning sun and goes back to sleep.

Waking up sticky and in desperate need of an shower, various bodily fluids caked on his skin, isn’t that much of a reason to worry, either. He’s had some wilds nights.

Waking up sore, his entire body aching, is a little more disconcerting but still not that big of a deal. He’s a hunter, it comes with the territory. Except that it’s not the kind of soreness that says ‘I was chased through the woods by a gigantic monster last night’, it’s more the ‘Someone got thoroughly fucked and I think it was me’ kind.

Which doesn’t make much sense. It’s not that unusual for him to have sex with men, Dean Winchester doesn’t discriminate, but what Dean Winchester never does is let himself be fucked.

So one could say that all these scenarios at once are, indeed, cause for concern.

Dean’s movements are sluggish as he sits up in bed, whatever has dried on his skin pulling uncomfortably when he moves, and his brain hasn’t fully loaded yet, otherwise he would probably be panicking. Should be panicking because he doesn’t remember drinking any alcohol the day before, nothing that could have caused his blackout.

Then — maybe his brain finally fires up or it all just catches up with him — he leaps into action when something next to him moves. 

Dean is out of the bed and halfway across the room, gun in hand, safety off, when someone sits up in the bed he just vacated. A tousled mop of brown hair is the first thing Dean sees, then a very _very_ naked torso. God help him.

“Dean, what the fuck?” the mop of hair with the naked torso grumbles.

Dean has already lowered the gun again because he knows that voice, it’s the first voice he hears before breakfast and the last before he goes to bed. It’s the voice that has asked him to tie shoelaces, pour cereal, and read bedtime stories. It’s the voice he’s heard distorted with pain, loaded with guilt, and shaky with grief. 

And now, apparently, he knows what it sounds like in the morning after sex, too.

“What are you doing?” the voice asks now and Dean realizes he is standing in the middle of the room, butt-naked, with his gun still in his hand, his gun arm now hanging limp at his side.

“I, uh,” Dean says and his own voice comes out hoarse, too. Jesus.

Sam’s face is scrunched up, remnant indignation at being woken up so rudely. He seems to be catching on because his eyes flicker away, falling down to his crotch. 

“Why were you in my bed?”

Dean splutters, “Why- That’s _my_ bed, Sam!”

“No, it’s not.” Sam manages to maintain the pout for all of four seconds because his gaze catches on the window. The window that’s all the way across the room, by the other bed, Sam’s bed instead of the one by the door that he’s currently occupying. 

“Oh,” he says. “Why am I in your bed?”

“I would really like the answer to that myself.” Dean places his gun back on the table and then grabs a pair of sweatpants from his duffel. He’s feeling too exposed, too vulnerable, even if it’s just Sam in the room with him. _Especially_ because it’s Sam in the room with him.

“Why am I naked?” Sam asks then as if he only just noticed. Maybe he did.

Dean startles a little at the word ‘naked’ and grumbles, “Another question I would really like the answer to.”

“Okay,” Sam says in his best ‘We’ve got a situation here, let’s see if we can figure it out’ tone that usually precedes copious amounts of research.

Dean averts his eyes when Sam climbs out of bed. It’s a little silly given what clearly happened last night but he can’t not. Besides, if he doesn’t _remember_ anything happening then nothing did. Good ol’ denial.

If only Dean could convince his sore ass of that.

Moments later Sam is hunched over his laptop, dressed in a pair of jeans and a shirt that may or may not be Dean’s. “What do you remember from yesterday?”

“We…” Dean begins only to realize that, actually, he doesn’t remember anything from the day before. “We’re working a case?”

“Are we?” Sam shoots back, eyebrows raised and Dean has to concede that he doesn’t know. It frustrates him, not knowing. The space in his head where his memory of the past few days should be is completely blank, yawning blackness smudged around the edges.

“I remember us arriving,” he says, his mind instantly rewinding to two days ago. They checked in at the reception, gritted their teeth through the obligatory ‘king or two queens’ question and went to work. But went to work on what?

Sam nods, already typing furiously. “So if we can retrace our steps, find out what the job here is, we figure out what we’re dealing with and how it got one over on us.”

“Right.”

Dean feels useless as Sam types and clicks, doesn’t know what to do with himself, and there’s still that stretch of emptiness in his mind, like an itch he can’t scratch. He wants to remember, he does, it’s the strangest thing to have a chunk of your memory just … missing, but it might be a blessing in disguise. Because his ass is still sore, he is still sticky all over and, oh god, is that a _hickey_?

He excuses himself to the bathroom, Sam waving him away, engrossed in his research, and stands in front of the mirror. He brushes his fingers over the red mark just above his collar bone, pressing down experimentally. He flinches when there’s a slight stinging sensation that should definitely feel less good than it does and he snatches his hand away. The waistband of his sweatpants is rubbing uncomfortably against a sore spot on his hip and when he folds it back, he discovers a crescent-shaped teeth mark sitting right there below his hip bone.

Dean pulls his pants back up and suppresses a shudder. He can feel other places on his body that smart and ache but he doesn’t want to look. Not looking equals not knowing and not knowing equals non-existence. Dean is sticking to that.

Speaking of ‘sticking to that’, since he is in the bathroom already and Sam is busy in the other room, he might as well take a shower.

The hot water on his naked skin is bliss and torture at the same time. It relaxes his knotted muscles but it scalds the sensitive areas of his body, more and more marks making themselves known. 

Nope, still not gonna look, that one bite mark is more than enough, thank you. Seriously, is Sam some kind of Neanderthal?

And, oh no, now he’s thought about Sam, he’s thought about Sam in connection with last night, with the marks on his body, and it’s so much harder to deny when he’s still brutally aware of the image of Sam sitting in his bed, naked and disheveled and confused. The drawback of losing part of your memory is that the things you do remember are all that much clearer.

He turns his face into the spray and lets the burn of the too-hot water drown out his thoughts.

When he returns to the other room, Sam is making notes on a small notepad, tapping a pen against his mouth in contemplation. Dean’s eyes are irrevocably drawn to the gesture and he turns away.

“Got something?” he asks, grabbing his weapons and the cleaning kit. They probably don’t require cleaning but he needs something to do with his hands. 

Sam makes a noncommittal grunting noise that could mean anything from ‘maybe’ to ‘shut up’. He scribbles down something else on the pad before looking up.

“Could be Lethe. It would explain the amnesia part but not the, um,” he stumbles a little over his words and Dean can see the flush in his cheeks even from halfway across the room, “you know.”

Oh, does Dean ever know. “Le-what?”

“Lethe,” Sam repeats. “The Goddess of Forgetfulness. It’s Greek mythology.”

“A goddess? Seriously?”

Sam shrugs but doesn’t seem all that convinced himself. “There isn’t much I can find that involves memory loss.”

“Well, what about the…” Dean cringes, his hands slipping on the gun he is dismantling. When did he start sweating? “What does she have to do with that?”

Sam shrugs again, slicing cleanly through Dean’s optimism. With a sigh, Dean shoves the gun parts to the side and gets up. “I need a drink.” It’s barely noon but he doesn’t give a shit.

“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” Sam says reluctantly and Dean’s mood deteriorates. “We still don’t actually know what we’re dealing with.”

“We never know what we’re dealing with.”

“Yeah, but Dean, we don’t have all the facts here.” Sam’s expression is pinched but pleading, too, and Dean can’t make himself take those last few steps to the door. He can’t deny that he is going a little crazy, caged in one room with his brother and his bed that is still tossed, sheets wrinkled and so clearly slept in — and god knows what else —, and that _smell_ that Dean can only describe as ‘sex smell’.

He opens every window as wide as they will go before he sits down again and goes back to cleaning his guns.

“We must have gone somewhere yesterday, right? Somewhere someone had the chance to … poison us or whammy us with a spell or whatever it was, right?”

Dean looks up but Sam is staring at his notes. “I guess.”

“I’m gonna check the local papers and news stations, see if I find something that looks like it could be up our alley. We must’ve had a reason for coming here.”

“I guess,” Dean says again even if it’s pretty obvious that Sam is merely thinking aloud. 

The rest of the day passes in a blur.

+

Waking up naked and with a total blank from the night before isn’t a first for Dean. That’s why he doesn’t worry too much about it, just shuffles back under the covers to block out the morning sun and goes back to sleep.

Waking up sticky and in desperate need of an shower, various bodily fluids caked on his skin, isn’t that much of a reason to worry, either. He’s had some wilds nights.

Waking up sore, his entire body aching— Hold on. Something’s familiar about this.

Dean sits up in bed with a groan, stiff muscles protesting. There is a rustle next to him that nearly makes him jump up and grab his gun but something keeps him frozen in place.

“Dean?” a muffled voice comes from the heap of blankets beside him before Sam digs his way out of them. “The hell’re you doing in my bed?”

“ _My_ bed, genius,” Dean gripes back. His brain slowly turns on, getting with the program. His eyes blink against the sunlight.

He’s got a strange sense of déjà-vu but it could just be morning confusion. And what a confusing morning it is.

Sam looks at him with the same slack-jawed expression that Dean suspects to be firmly in place on his own face. He averts his eyes, desperately trying to look anywhere but Sam’s naked chest or his bed-hair.

“Huh,” Sam says, looking around. “What am I doing in your bed?” He flinches slightly. “Wait, have I said that before?”

“Not today you haven’t,” Dean says without thinking. This isn’t a conversation he necessarily wants to have. What he wants is a shower, but first and foremost, what he wants is to get out of this bed, remove himself from Sam’s proximity. Jesus Christ, did the room smell like _sex_?

Sam repeats quietly, “Not today,” and Dean folds back the covers only to realize it’s not just Sam who is naked. Of course. Would have been too much to ask.

He is painfully — literally — aware of his sore backside when he swings his legs out of bed, taking the sheet with him. It’s sort of ridiculous, really, given that Sam has seen him naked countless times in the past thirty-odd years, and especially given what clearly happened last night—

Nothing happened last night. Dean is sticking to that. And he is going to take the sheet with him into the bathroom if he wants to, goddammit.

“You remember anything from yesterday?” Sam asks him when he’s just about to slam the bathroom door.

Dean does, he thinks. Sort of. It’s all blurring together, like one of those water color paintings that can only be properly seen from afar. Maybe if he could step back, he could see the bigger picture. 

But right here, knuckles white from clutching the bed sheet around his waist, he is anything but objective.

+

It keeps happening and all Dean ever remembers is vague bits and pieces. He knows they haven’t woken up before noon for four days, which is unusual. Especially if they are working a case. 

That’s the other thing Dean knows. They should be working a case. He just can’t remember what it is, and neither can Sam as it seems. Which is a bummer because Dean was kind of counting on the kid’s genius brain to be able to retain more than Dean can.

Apparently it doesn’t work like that.

Dean remembers that they ate lunch at that nice, cozy diner down the road from the motel yesterday. He remembers that he had pancakes and that they were heavenly. He remembers Sam rolling his eyes at how Dean spilled sticky maple syrup all over the table.

He remembers that he cleaned his guns yesterday and the day before and the day before that. He doesn’t remember why but when he looks down at his hands they’re trembling slightly and he can feel an itch, something he won’t be able to scratch or soothe.

It’s like he should be doing something or _wants_ to be doing something and his hands remember but his brain doesn’t. It’s confusing as fuck and it’s starting to mess with his perception.

At least that’s the most plausible explanation for everything that is so different. It’s not the memory loss in itself that bothers him, not really, it’s that he feels like he is missing something important, something so glaringly obvious, staring him right in the face, tripping him up, and he just … can’t see it. Can’t remember.

It’s strongest whenever he looks at his brother. He looks at Sam and he _knows_ he is missing something vital. Because he might not be able to remember most of what happened the past week but his body knows. It’s not just the lingering bruises and bite marks that serve as a constant reminder — and somehow, when the old ones fade, new ones show up, what is that about? —, there are emotions coursing through him he is pretty sure weren’t there a week ago.

Emotions, wants, needs, _desires_. It’s terrifying is what it boils down to. 

The days all sort of muddle together but he remembers the embarrassment of the past few days. The confusion, the _shock_ of waking up naked in bed next to his naked brother, all the signs too visible to ignore and Dean still managed to let denial prevail.

This morning, there was none of that. Both of them immediately sprung into action.

Sam wrote down everything they found, every bit of research he combed through. Annoying thing is, whenever they forget, they have to look half of it up again anyway because Sam’s notes suddenly make a lot less sense with part of your memory missing.

They keep coming across Lethe, that goodness of having your memories robbed and whatnot, but Sam keeps crossing it out.

“Incubus?” he muses, “Or a succubus? I mean, they usually seduce you in your sleep, right? It seems like we lose our memories when we go to sleep.”

“Yeah, but there’s no incubus or succubus seducing us, it’s…” Dean almost says it but he catches himself in time. 

Or maybe not entirely in time because Sam’s gaze is heavy on him and they both know how that sentence was going to end. _It’s us … seducing each other._

May god have mercy on their souls.

+

The next morning when Dean tries to wiggle out from under the sheets, Sam’s hand on his bare arm stops him. The touch is like a little jolt of electricity, surprising Dean with how intimate, how intense the contact feels. 

_It’s just his fucking hand. Get a grip, Winchester._

He keeps his voice carefully neutral. “What is it?”

“What if…”

Dean turns back around to his brother, who is half sitting up, half lying down, angled toward Dean, and chewing his bottom lip in both concentration and hesitation. “What if we stay here?”

“Here where?”

“Here in bed.”

Dean tenses so suddenly that Sam must be able to feel it in his palms. His fingers close a little more tightly around Dean’s forearm, not hurting, just a firm presence. Dean looks down at the back of Sam’s hand, tan against his own paler skin.

“I think,” Sam goes on, “we keep making the same mistake. We try to figure out what happened and what did it. Maybe we need to find a way to … make the memories last.”

Dean finds himself unable to swallow against the blockage in his throat. His voice sounds hoarse to his own ears when he says, “What memories are you talking about exactly?”

The answer is so painfully obvious that neither Sam nor Dean can make themselves say it. If there were any doubts in Dean’s mind what Sam is taking about, the way his hold on Dean’s arm adjusts, thumb stroking over the point of his pulse, just obliterated every last one of them.

“Sam,” Dean all but croaks. He snaps his mouth shut before any more embarrassing noises have a chance to claw their way out of him, and Sam just smiles. It’s a small, shy thing hiding in the corners of his mouth but it’s nearly blinding to Dean.

Dean only notices he is trembling when Sam tugs him back down, half on top of him, one arm around Dean’s waist, the other coming up around his shoulders. Sam’s touch is feather-light at first and Dean is about to say something because he doesn’t think he can stand it but then Sam grabs him, fingers digging a little harder into Dean’s side, and flips them so the back of Dean’s head hits the pillow.

He is left with a strange sense of vertigo but his hands have developed a mind of their own, smoothing over Sam’s shoulder, down to his shoulder blades to trace the protruding bones. Sam shivers on top of him when Dean brushes his fingers up to the nape of his neck.

“What are we doing?” he asks quietly, unsteadily, when Sam brings their foreheads together so they can breathe in each other’s space. It might sound like a stupid question, maybe it is, but Dean needs Sam to explain this to him because he can’t… He doesn’t understand what he is missing, doesn’t know when he started feeling like this, when Sam’s skin beneath his fingertips became this addicting, when he started feeling so cold whenever there was more than a couple of inches space between them.

Sam doesn’t answer and Dean is unsure if it is because he doesn’t know, either, or because of some other reason. Dean really hopes it’s something else. There should be at least one of them who knows what the fuck is going on because it sure as shit isn’t Dean.

“You know,” Sam whispers into the non-distance between them, “what I regret forgetting the most? Every time I wake up with this black hole in my head I think about the same thing. And you’re gonna laugh at me for it.”

Dean doesn’t think he could laugh right now if he wanted to. His body is too rigid, his mind whirling at too fast a speed, and his senses are flooded by _Sam Sam Sam_.

“Try me,” he manages, holding himself completely still until Sam’s hands come up to frame his face and another one of those tiny lightning-like charges spark through him.

Sam simply says, “This,” and Dean knows Sam is going to kiss him before it happens. One would think he would be at least somewhat prepared but prepared is the last thing Dean feels when Sam’s mouth melds with his, hot and soft and dry. Until it’s wet, tongue coming up to lick beyond Dean’s lips and someone makes a mewling sound.

It’s him, Dean knows it is, but he is going to deny that till the day he dies. What he can’t deny, though, is the way he is clutching at Sam’s shoulders, dragging him closer against his own body and he would like to thank whoever’s listening that they are still naked because it makes it oh so easy to wrap his legs around Sam’s narrow hips and arch up into that glorious friction.

Sam gasps into his mouth and Dean swallows it right up, getting his fingers tangled in Sam’s mop of hair. Dean’s brain distantly provides Dean with the thought that perhaps he should be more ashamed about all the noises he keeps making, but Dean figures his brain hasn’t exactly done the best of jobs lately and it doesn’t get a vote. Not when Sam is kissing him like his life depends on it, fingers digging new bruises into Dean’s skin, rutting back against him with little to no finesse but enough desperation to make up for it.

Dean welcomes every new mark he will get out of this. It has almost become a morning ritual, turning on his own axis in front of the bathroom mirror, running his fingers over every scratch, bite, and hickey. It’s become his anchor, in a way. It means it really happened.

He should probably be more concerned with why it’s so damn hot. Why does it turn him on so much to press and prod all the aching spots on his body, knowing it was his _brother_ who put them there? And there’s always that lingering soreness in his ass. He never bottomed before and he doesn’t know why he started now — you know, since he can’t remember — and what’s more, he doesn’t know why he keeps letting it happen. Keeps letting Sam do that to him. 

Except, somewhere in his scrambled brain, he wants to submit. His body definitely does, there’s no mistaking the way it’s straining, arching up, Dean’s legs still folded snugly around Sam’s hips, and Dean knows he’s gonna let it happen again. Because he doesn’t remember and he wants to, wants to know what it feels like, wants to have Sam that way, wants Sam to have _him_ that way, and isn’t that just the scariest shit.

“What is it?” Sam asks softly, kissing the corner of Dean’s mouth and Dean drags a shuddery breath into his lungs.

“Lube,” he says, lightning-quick. “We need— I want—” It’s ridiculous that after everything he still can’t make himself say it. He isn’t a blushing virgin, for Christ’s sake.

Although, in a way, he is. He doesn’t actually remember all the other times he’s had sex with Sam — oh god, with _Sam_ —, so it’s a little like the first time all over again.

“Jesus,” Sam breathes out against his skin, withdrawing a little, and Dean silently echoes the sentiment. He props himself up on shaky elbows and grabs for the bottle of lube he knows is in the top drawer of the nightstand.

He stops, looks at it. He knew it would be there, so his memories have to be in there somewhere. Buried.

That means he can get them back, right? If they can find out how.

Sam rolls them then, Dean ending up back on top with his legs bracketing Sam’s hips. He appreciates the gesture, Sam telling him without words that he will go at the pace Dean sets, silently giving him room to breathe.

Dean lets his hands wander across all that naked skin on display, his for the touching, and it’s so familiar to touch Sam in this way. His hands know exactly what to do, where to go, brushing all the sensitive spots that make Sam’s breath hitch. It’s more surreal than anything Dean’s ever experienced because he doesn’t remember ever doing this.

He grabs the lube and slicks up Sam’s cock, and it’s still familiar, the way it feels against Dean’s palm, heat and velvet. He knows what Sam’s moan is going to sound like before he hears it.

Reaching back to touch himself, he finds his rim still slightly sensitive. He’s pliant enough, he thinks, trusting his own body even if he doesn’t trust his mind, and he gives himself time to sink down on Sam’s cock at a leisurely pace, reveling in the simultaneous sensations of novelty and familiarity.

Sam lets him, keeps his hands on Dean’s hips but not insisting, not urging, just holding. His fingers tighten briefly on Dean’s flanks when Dean bottoms out and they’re pressed flush together, both breathing heavily.

Dean rolls his head on his shoulders, swivels his hips to get used to the feeling of something hard and hot and huge inside of him. He supports himself with his palms splayed on Sam’s chest, letting his brother take his weight, and they start moving together. Slowly at first, Dean rocking his hips back and forth, before he lifts himself nearly all the way of Sam’s cock to slide back down in one smooth glide.

They moan together and the friction burns a little despite the lube but Dean keeps lifting himself, keeps slamming back down, Sam meeting him halfway most of the time, and it’s utterly perfect. Dean didn’t think he could feel like this, pleasure radiating all the way to the tips of his fingers and toes, arousal a liquid-hot helix around his spine, making him arch into every movement, into every touch, and thinks he can hear Sam talking, murmuring Dean’s name and other nonsense under his breath.

“Sammy,” he says then, coming out of him breathlessly and like a punch, and Sam gasps in reply.

“Here,” he says, “I got you,” his own voice breathless, and he wraps his arms around Dean’s back, fingers slipping on sweaty skin, and drags them closer together. Sam holds him tightly enough that Dean can barely move now, helpless to the roll of Sam’s hips against his, the short, hard strokes of that cock thrusting into him, and he can’t stop those little whimpers he makes every time it rubs along his prostrate.

Dean’s cock is trapped between their bellies now, sweat-slick skin providing friction and it’s almost too much. Overwhelmed, Dean can only grab onto Sam’s shoulders and slam their mouths together, messy kiss full of tongue and teeth, and he comes in the space between them, painting both their stomachs creamy-white.

Sam groans into his mouth, his fingernails digging more marks into Dean’s skin, and Dean lets Sam hold him up, lets him fuck him and do as he pleases. 

Sam comes with a bite to Dean’s lower lip. Not hard enough to split it and draw blood but Dean flinches a little anyway, then kisses Sam even harder.

They come down from their orgasms lying next to each other, Sam’s hand gentle on Dean’s back, spreading out over the curve of his spine. Dean shivers as the cool air from the room hits his damp, naked skin and he grabs for the blanket, pulling it up over his hips. He turns onto his side, facing Sam.

His brother’s eyes are soft as they linger on Dean’s face but his expression is too guarded. 

“You okay?”

Sam asks, “Why wouldn’t I be?”

“You tell me.”

Dean feels sleepy despite the fact that it is just past noon. He’s even stickier now than when he woke up this morning but he is content to stay where he is for the moment. He can feel the wetness between his legs when he shifts, lube and cum dribbling out of him, and it nearly makes him flush red.

Sam closes his eyes for a moment, turning his cheek into Dean’s arm that he’s using as a pillow, his mouth brushing the crook of Dean’s elbow when he speaks. “I am now. Okay, I mean. Better than okay. I just … I guess I wanted to make sure that you really want this.”

It takes Dean’s brain functions a moment to permeate the post-coital haze. “I— Why’d you think that?”

Sam opens his eyes again. “I had no way of knowing, Dean. I still don’t actually remember.”

“You think you took advantage of me?”

“Best case scenario,” Sam says slowly, “yes.”

“That’s—“ _bullshit_. “You give yourself too much credit.”

Sam’s eyebrows draw together. Pieces of hair are sticking wetly to his forehead and he brushes them away as he probs himself up on his elbow. “What?”

Dean turns onto his back to look up at Sam. “We’re evenly matched in a fair fight and I never fight fair. I would kick your ass before I’d let you do anything I don’t want.”

Dean isn’t sure that’s entirely true, both the part about being able to take Sam in a fight — the guy might be his little brother but he’s still taller and stronger than Dean because, apparently, the universe’s got a warped sense of humor — and the part about not letting Sam do something Dean doesn’t want. He’s pretty positive it applies to this scenario, though.

Besides, what’s more important, he knows that Sam, in his right mind, would sooner hurt himself than hurt Dean. They both would. It’s usually what bites them in the ass sooner or later.

Sam doesn’t say anything but the crease between his eyebrows disappears and he lies back down with a sigh, pressing a brief kiss to the pale inside of Dean’s biceps.

After about a minute of silence, Dean says, “So, I guess, having sex again didn’t jostle our memories.”

He can feel Sam smile more than he can see it. “Yeah,” he says, “I didn’t really think it would.”

+

Sam keeps Dean from falling asleep because “it might delete your memory again,” and he’s right but Dean still grumbles at him for it.

They shower and after that they actually make some headway.

“So … amnesia after sleeping,” Sam says, tipping his pen against the table in thought. He is back to scribbling on his notepad. “We still don’t know what we came here to hunt and if it’s the same thing doing this.”

Dean feels like they’ve been here before. It’s frustrating to no end if you can’t tell what you know already and what you don’t.

He rearranges himself on Sam’s bed — the clean one —, tucking his legs in to sit Indian style. Despite the shower, he still feels filthy, swears he can still feel the phantom of Sam’s release dripping out of him, and he thinks the memory shouldn’t be this hot, shouldn’t make tight heat coil in his belly like that. ‘Shouldn’t’ as in, he knows it’s wrong. But he doesn’t care. Actually, it’s a little frightening how much he doesn’t care.

The worst thing about all this is that he can’t tell what’s real. He can’t tell if this is really him feeling like this or if it’s something they got hit with, a spell, a potion, whatever. He doesn’t know which one he wants it to be. All he knows is that it’s going to be so damn hard to go back to before. He isn’t sure he can remember ‘before’. He can’t remember what it was like not to feel like this.

Does that make it more real? Or less?

“Sore?” Sam asks quietly, misinterpreting Dean’s restlessness. Dean is but not badly so. It’s actually, um… It’s not exactly a bad feeling, being reminded of what they did. Or rather, what they’ve been doing.

He shakes his head. “Fine.”

Sam regards him for a moment with an unreadable expression. Then he grabs his laptop and his notepad and joins Dean on the bed.

“Scoot,” he says, shuffling back against the headboard when Dean makes room for him, his jeans-clad thigh pressed warmly against Dean’s.

“I’ve been thinking,” he taps Dean’s knee with the pen to draw his attention, as if Dean could be focused on anything else, “that maybe it’s about first times. You said something the other day.”

“I did?”

“I don’t remember what it was now but it made me think that maybe it’s all about experiencing something for the first time, you know?” He glances over at Dean, perhaps to make sure he is listening, and then types something into the browser bar on his laptop. “I’ve been looking at sex spells and memory loss and what keeps coming up is this.”

He angles the screen toward Dean and Dean instantly feels the compelling desire to roll his eyes. “Cupid, Sam? Seriously?”

“Not Cupid.” Sam closes the laptop lid and lets it rest in his lap. “Cherubs. They’re angels, they’ve got the ability to wipe someone’s memory. It’s the only thing that makes sense.”

“You mean it’s the only thing you could find.”

Sam shoots him a look as if to say ‘Same thing’ and Dean almost giggles. The entire thing is hilariously ridiculous. 

“It was Valentine’s Day,” Sam points out then and the laughter gets stuck in Dean’s throat, “Five days ago. It was Valentine’s Day.”

“You’ve got to be shitting me.”

Sam shrugs.

Dean blows out a breath. He has to admit that it’s not the most far-fetched thing he’s heard. Although it might make the list of ‘top three’. “I can’t imagine we’re here to hunt a cupid. Or a cherub or whatever. They’re not usually the evil sort.”

“If they’re taking people’s memories, that’s kind of different from their usual gig.”

Their usual gig being shooting at people with love arrows so they fall head-over-heels in puppy love with each other. Dean cringes. God help him. “Fucking angels, man.”

Sam makes a noise of agreement.

“So, I guess we gotta ask around, see if anyone else has gone _Memento_. And we gotta do it before nightfall because come morning…”

Sam nods. “We’ll forget, yeah.”

+

They hit the nearest doctor’s office because it’s the most obvious place to start that they can come up with. The yield is meager at best.

“It’s unlikely that it’s only us. What do all these people think their memory loss stems from?”

Dean shrugs. “Maybe they think they had a drunken one-night-stand. After all, it was Valentine's Day.”

Sam looks up at him. “That … would actually explain a lot.”

_Still doesn’t explain us._

Dean’s been wondering. If it is a cherub, which he still can’t quite believe, that still doesn’t explain why he and Sam got whammied. The angel could have chosen any two people to bring together, same outcome, why _brothers_? Dean knows the guys don’t exactly possess the same moral compass humans do but still, it strikes him as strange.

He feels like the answer should be obvious and he’s the only one who can’t see it.

“Why us?” he asks on the way to the car. He swears he can see Sam flinch, an expression flashing across his face, but it’s gone too quickly for Dean to get a read on.

“I don’t know,” Sam shrugs. “Could be random.”

“Yeah, right.”

Sam slides into the passenger seat at the same time Dean slides behind the wheel. “I don’t know, Dean. Maybe it doesn’t know we’re brothers. We came into town together in one car and we’re staying in the same motel room. It’s not that big of a leap.”

“Right, but if it already _assumed_ we’re…” He can’t make himself say the word ‘lovers’ so he just sort of waves his hand around instead. “Why would it even want to get us together?”

“I don’t think it’s about that. This cherub might not be like Cupid, hooking people up who are meant to be together. I think it’s about first times.”

Dean tries not to get stuck on the ‘meant to be together’ part. “You said that before. What’d you mean?”

“I mean the … magic or whatever of experiencing sex for the first time. If you don’t remember it, you can experience it over and over again for the first time, in a way. Maybe it’s about virginity. Maybe it’s some sort of strange fertility ritual.” Sam shrugs. “Although I don’t know how useful that would be coming from two guys.”

“Magic?” Dean repeats flatly and Sam huffs a quiet laugh.

“It’s a thing for some people, I guess. Lots of people pledge abstinence before marriage because they want to wait for the right person.”

Dean scoffs and turns the key in the ignition to start the car. “Do _you_ believe that that person exists? You know, The One or whatever.”

“We know it does.” Sam gives him a pointed look. “We know about heaven and we know about soulmates.” 

Dean jolts at the word ‘soulmates’. It’s what Ash called Sam and him all those years ago and it’s always been there at the back of his mind but they never talked about it. Dean isn’t sure if he ever believed it. And at the same time, he’s always known it to be true. But that isn’t anything remarkable, it just is. The two of them, it is what it is, nothing special about it.

Yet, at the same time, it’s a once-in-a-lifetime thing.

“What I know,” he says stiffly, “is that there are naked angels that shoot arrows at you so you fall in love with some other poor idiot. Seems kinda forced to me.”

“You know there’s no such thing, right? There’s no spell, no potion, no creature that can create love. There has to be something there already. Call it predestination if you want.”

Dean grouches, “Meddling in other people’s business, that’s what I call it,” and Sam laughs.

Even now Dean has the urge to reach over and touch Sam, his thigh, his hand, shoulder, whatever he can reach. His fingers are itching with it and he tightens them on the wheel, staring so hard at the road that it swims before his eyes, and he blinks. It’s overwhelming how much he wants Sam close, even when he’s already right there, always next to Dean in the passenger seat.

_There has to be something there already._

It’s the oldest rule in the book, Dean knows that. And it seems more likely by the minute because this … this can’t have happened over night, it must have crept up on him, candle flame sparked into a full-flown fire by whatever is going on in this town.

Dean glances over, his eyes getting stuck on Sam’s profile, and he can barely admit it to himself but he’s scared to death that it’ll turn out to be a fluke after all.

But then Sam catches him looking, eyes gentle, mouth curling into a slow smile, and Dean knows that this feeling isn’t going anywhere.

+

The next morning is different and it’s the first thing Dean notices when he wakes up in Sam’s arms.

He doesn’t startle from his sleep. He doesn’t jerk away from his brother’s sleeping form. Instead, he closes his eyes against the light and curls back into Sam’s embrace. He practically wraps himself around his brother, arms wound around Sam’s middle, and breathes him in, same old _Sam_ smell, warmth and home and that underlying hint of vanilla that Dean has never been able to explain. 

Sam stirs, his arms tightening briefly around Dean’s waist. He makes a content-sounding noise and presses his nose into Dean’s cheek, voice rough with disuse when he says, “Morning.”

Dean hums in response and turns his head that last bit to press his lips against Sam’s, captures his mouth in one of those slightly stale-tasting, gloriously lazy good-morning kisses.

Because he remembers.

He almost laughs with relief, a tiny, hysterical sound rolling up from the base of his throat. It dies on Sam’s tongue in his mouth.

For a few minutes, it turns into a full-blown make-out session, teeth nipping lips, fingers stroking skin, and by the end of it Dean’s got his leg hiked up on Sam’s hip and they’re both breathless, mouth kiss-swollen and red.

“Christ,” Dean says, accompanied by a breathy laugh, and Sam grins at him.

+

They go out for breakfast and while Dean is piling bacon onto his eggs, he asks, “So, what’s different today?”

Sam’s eyes are trained on the heartburn Dean is about to eat for breakfast, familiar curl of distaste in the corner of his mouth. “I don’t know. It could be over.”

“You think so?”

The waitress drops by to top off their coffee. She flicks Dean a smile that could be flirting but Dean isn’t interested in finding out. He keeps his eyes on Sam, waiting for him to answer while he sips his coffee.

The waitress leaves and Sam’s eyes are shining with amusement and Dean can’t possibly imagine what could be funny to his little brother right now but Sam’s always been a weird kid.

Sam seems to remember Dean’s question then. “I think it could be. I don’t know what the significance of five days is but I definitely didn’t forget anything about yesterday.”

The words carry a certain implication, even if Dean isn’t quite sure what it is. He can feel the tips of his ears growing hot all the same. He makes a noncommittal sound and digs into his breakfast.

“So, what?” he asks while chewing, cherishing the look of disgust on his brother’s face. “The cherub’s gone and it took people’s memories with it?”

“Including ours,” Sam says sourly and Dean shares the sentiment. Yesterday is still clear as day but the days before that are a blur — and not the everyday ‘I don’t remember what I had for lunch last week’ kind of blur.

They would have to stick around to make sure, turn over every stone, comb every corner of the town. Even if they don’t wake up again tomorrow with holes in their recollections, they have to find out where the angel went.

“Means we might not get our memories back.”

Sam looks at him over the rim of his coffee mug.

“We’ll make new ones,” he says with a glint his eyes and this time Dean really can’t miss the implication in his words.


End file.
